How Many Calories Should I Eat to Lose Weight? The Simple Math (With a Table)

To lose weight how many calories should I consume? The short answer is simple: about 300 to 500 calories fewer than your maintenance level each day. That gap is called a calorie deficit, and it is the whole engine of weight loss. Everything else — the meal plans, the apps, the diet names — is just a way of holding that gap steady.

Here is the 3-step version you can use today:

1. Find your maintenance calories. That is the number of calories that keeps your current weight steady. It depends on your size, age, sex and activity, and you can estimate it in under a minute with a calculator (see below).
2. Subtract 300 to 500. That range gives a steady loss of roughly 0.5 to 1 pound per week — fast enough to see progress, gentle enough to keep living your life.
3. Do not crash below sensible floors. About 1,200 calories a day for women and 1,500 a day for men is the commonly advised minimum without medical supervision. If your target would fall below that floor, use a smaller deficit instead.

The 3-Step Math, in Plain English

Step one is the one people skip, and it is the one that matters most. Your maintenance level is personal. Two people of the same weight can have very different maintenance numbers if one walks 12,000 steps a day and the other sits at a desk. Guessing a target without knowing your maintenance is like aiming at a target you cannot see.

The fastest way to find your number is our Maintenance Calories Calculator, which estimates it from your age, height, weight and activity. Use that number as your starting point, not as gospel: it is an estimate, and your real results over two to three weeks will tell you whether it is right.

Step two is where the deficit comes in. A 300-calorie deficit is a small, very livable cut — a sugary drink swapped for water, a slightly smaller dinner portion, a snack skipped. A 500-calorie deficit is more noticeable but still sustainable for most people. Anything much bigger than 500 tends to bring constant hunger, tiredness and the urge to quit, which is why the 300 to 500 range is the sweet spot for steady loss.

Step three is the safety rail. Very low intakes are hard to sustain and can leave you short on nutrients and energy. If your maintenance is, say, 1,600 calories, a 500-calorie deficit would put you at 1,100 — below the commonly advised floor for women. In that case, take a 300-calorie deficit instead (1,300) and accept the slower pace. Losing slowly beats quitting entirely.

The Target Table: From Maintenance to Weight Loss

Find your maintenance row, then read across. The two target columns are simply your maintenance minus 300 and minus 500. The last column is the pace the 3,500-calorie rule predicts — and remember, real loss usually slows a little over time, which is normal, not failure.

Two notes on reading this table. First, the minus-300 column is the gentler path: about half a pound a week, which adds up to roughly 2 pounds a month. Second, check your row against the floors: if the minus-500 target would drop you below about 1,200 (women) or 1,500 (men), stick with the minus-300 column instead.

Worked Example: Maintenance 2,300, Eating 1,800

Imagine someone whose maintenance is 2,300 calories a day. They choose a 500-calorie deficit and eat about 1,800 calories a day. The math is: 2,300 minus 500 equals 1,800, and 500 times 7 days equals 3,500 calories a week — which, by the classic rule, is about 1 pound of body fat per week.

Over 12 weeks, the rule alone would predict about 12 pounds lost. In real life, the result by month 3 is usually a bit less — often around 8 to 10 pounds of fat — because the body adapts as it gets lighter and because early fast loss includes water weight that does not repeat. That slowdown is not a sign the plan stopped working; it is the reason targets need recalculating (see below). For the full story on why the rule is only a starting point, read our guide How Many Calories Are in a Pound.

How Many Calories Should You Eat Per Day, in General?

Before any deficit, it helps to know the ballpark you are starting from. As a rough guide, most adult women maintain their weight on about 1,800 to 2,400 calories a day, and most adult men on about 2,200 to 3,000, depending on activity. Sedentary people sit near the low end; people with active jobs or daily training sit near the high end. Those are population ranges, not personal prescriptions — your own maintenance number from the calculator above is what your target should be built on.

If you want the fuller picture by age and activity, our general guide How Many Calories Should I Eat a Day? lays out the tables. This article is the weight-loss companion to it: same maintenance idea, but with the deficit applied.

Why Your Target Must Change as You Lose Weight

Here is the part most plans forget to mention: your maintenance level falls as you get lighter. A smaller body needs less energy to run, so a target that produced a 500-calorie deficit at your starting weight may only be a 300-calorie deficit ten pounds later. That is a big reason weight loss slows over time, and it is completely normal.

The fix is simple: recalculate your maintenance every 10 pounds or so, or whenever your loss stalls for three to four weeks, and re-apply the same minus 300 to 500 to the new number. Do not keep cutting forever, though — if your recalculated target would drop below the sensible floors, hold your intake steady and add more daily movement instead.

Protein Helps Hunger on a Deficit

A deficit only works if you can actually stick to it, and hunger is usually what breaks it. Protein is the most filling nutrient per calorie, so building each meal around a protein source — chicken, fish, eggs, Greek yogurt, beans or tofu — makes the same calorie target feel much easier. It also helps protect muscle while you lose fat, which matters because muscle keeps your maintenance higher.

For snack ideas that fit a deficit, see our High-Protein Snacks list: most options land between 7 and 25 grams of protein for roughly 100 to 200 calories. A planned protein snack at 4 p.m. often prevents a ravenous, unplanned dinner at 6 p.m.

What If You Are Not Losing at Your Target?

First, give it time: two to three weeks of consistent tracking before judging, since water weight can mask fat loss in either direction. If the scale still has not moved after that, the most common culprits are portion creep (cooking oils, sauces, drinks and snacks quietly adding 200 to 300 calories a day), a maintenance estimate that was too high, or a target that no longer matches your lighter body. Recalculate, tighten the tracking for a week, and check the floors before cutting further. If you have a medical condition or take medication that affects weight, talk to your doctor rather than pushing the deficit lower.

The bottom line is refreshingly boring: find your maintenance, subtract 300 to 500, stay above the floors, and recalculate as you shrink. No magic food, no forbidden list — just steady arithmetic, repeated for long enough to work.